THE MECHANISM OF GOOD

In his Autobiography, the yoga master, Paramahansa Yogananda, recounts a story from his childhood about a rare disagreement between his mother and father. The story is best told in his own words:

“Please give me ten rupees for a hapless woman who has just arrived at the house.” Mother’s smile had its own persuasion.

“Why ten rupees? One is enough.” Father added a justification: “When my father and grandparents died suddenly, I had my first experience of poverty. My only breakfast, before walking miles to my school, was a small banana. Later, at the university, I was in such need that I applied to a wealthy judge for aid of one rupee per month. He declined, remarking that even a rupee is important."

“How bitterly you recall the denial of that rupee!” Mother’s heart had an instant logic. “Do you want this woman also to remember painfully your refusal of ten rupees, which she needs urgently?”

Not surprisingly, Yogananda’s father gave in.

I have written about the mechanism of evil, which is to deny responsibility for the pain and failure that come to us in life, assume the identity of victim, and project the responsibility and blame onto an oppressor who becomes our embodiment of evil. Our sense of victimhood and lack of responsibility allows us to "justify" our own violence and evil, which is to say it is "just" under the circumstances. Yogananda's story demonstrates that mechanism, but it also demonstrates the mechanism of goodness.

The mechanism of goodness begins with an acceptance of whatever comes to us in life. This is easiest to do when we understand that the law of cause and effect extends to human actions, and that all of our experiences are the effects of past causes – whether in this life, or in some other. If one does not accept this, it is extremely difficult to avoid feeling that one is a victim of an unjust world. If one feels the world is unjust, one cannot really feel that God is just. And one cannot feel either secure or loved if one is fundamentally alienated from God.

A curious corollary of “victimhood”, is that it tends to focus the entire attention of the “victim" on him or herself – his or her suffering, the injustice that has been visited upon him or her, the unfairness of his or her situation. Completely self-focused, the “victim” is unaware of his or her effects on others, and also to their suffering.

This is well demonstrated in Yogananda’s story. Though his father had a vivid memory of how he felt at having his request for a rupee denied by the judge, he was more than willing to deny the request for ten rupees of the woman at the door. I call this mechanism the “law of equal suffering.” I went through it, so why shouldn't you? The “equal suffering” principle is widespread, as any army private, law firm associate or resident physician will attest. However it may be justified by its practitioners, the fact is, it is retribution and nothing else.

The mechanism of goodness is quite the reverse. Rather than focusing on oneself as the victim of past suffering, it focuses on the one who is suffering in the present. Rather than requiring equal suffering of one’s fellowman, it seeks to avoid it. “Given that I know what it feels like to suffer, I will do what I can so that others do not have to suffer.” This is empathy. And its application can truly change the world.

Empathy was perhaps most famously expressed by Jesus on the cross: “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.” In the extremity of dying, he thought not of himself, but of his murderers. Every Christian knows these words, but most feel it is beyond them to practice. “Christ was divine,” they would say. “But we are human.” But those who would say this are not truly Christians, for they are ignoring the words of Christ spoken at the Last Supper.

“This is my commandment,” he said, “That ye love one another, as I have loved you.”